Southern Spaces (May 2011)
Whiskey and Geography
Abstract
Charles Thompson's Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World tells the story of Franklin County, Virginia, during the 1930s through the lives of Appalachian farmers who made moonshine there. The book reveals how whiskey production ultimately caught local residents in a conspiracy of national proportions. As background, Spirits of Just Men asks why so many farmers lived in such out of the way places. How did they acquire their knowledge of producing liquor? And, what did moonshining have to do with national farm and trade policy? Southern Spaces offers two excerpts from Spirits of Just Men. The first, a video produced by Marissa Katarina Bergmann, offers glimpses of modern-day Shooting Creek juxtaposed with historical images, remembrances of Thompson’s grandfather, and the music of Charlie Poole. The second excerpt sketches the origins of whiskey-making in the backcountry and recalls the resistance to Alexander Hamilton’s efforts to impose a whiskey tax.
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